Tannishtha Chatterjee on skin tone-shaming roast: Jokes on prejudices are not okay

On Tuesday, Tannishtha Chatterjee posted a powerful message on her Facebook page, expressing her horror at being made fun of for the colour of her skin on '

Comedy Nights Bachao

'. The actress, who was accompanied by her '

Parched

' co-star Radhika Apte and director Leena Yadav, stormed off the set mid-show. She thought that 'Comedy Nights...' was on the lines of US TV shows like 'Saturday Night Live', and was actually looking forward to it.

'Something shocked me out of my wits yesterday. I was invited as a guest to a popular comedy show called 'Comedy Night Bachao...' Then this show began...To my utmost horror, I soon realised that the only quality they found worth roasting about in me was my skin tone. It began with, 'Aap ko jamun bahut pasand hoga zaroor! Kitna jamun khaya aapne bachpan se?'...Why does skin tone still lend itself to jokes? How is it funny to call someone dark? I don't get it,' she wrote. The actress said she tried to go along with it, but couldn't tolerate the jokes after a point. 'I could not believe I was sitting in a nationally televised comedy show in 2016 in Mumbai amid such regressive and blatantly racist content... When I told the organisers what I felt, they said, 'But we told you it is a roast!'

National Commission for Women

(NCW) slammed the show
Yesterday, the National Commission for Women (NCW) slammed the show as well, and said that it was exploring avenues to initiate action on the unfortunate episode.

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Colors apologizes to Tannishtha Chatterjee for the racist comments after her Facebook post

Tannishtha should have known about Comedy Nights Bachao's format before coming: Krushna Abhishek

The channel apologises
Replying to her post,

Colors

wrote that it has always addressed pertinent social issues, and was sorry that she had a traumatic experience on the show. 'It is rather unfortunate that what you had expected to be a fun and novel experience turned out to be traumatic for you. It was never our intention, nor a practice for us or the makers of the show to offend anyone at all with the jokes. We have taken this up seriously with the creative team and the production house to ensure that the show is produced in line with the vision of the channel. Please accept our apologies,' the channel responded.